This week, we celebrated Whitsun at school, and it got me thinking about something completely unrelated to the festival itself – the importance of mixed aged learning and play (something that those of us teaching in classrooms can learn a lot about from our fellow homeschool educators!).
Our Whitsun festival was really simple – earlier in the week the students heard the story of Whitsun and learnt a simple Whitsun song that works well in a round. Each class then made paper doves ready to hang. On Friday morning each student quietly hung their dove in a central area between the classrooms, and later the whole lower school came together to sing the Whitsun song around the hanging doves. The beautiful doves then stayed there for the day for all to enjoy. It was a really special festival because it was so simple, not at all ‘forced’, and all involved could feel the reverence of the moment in whatever way was meaningful for them. Many of the students afterwards said that thought that it was SUCH a lovely festival, and it was just so nice and yet so simple!
The end result was of course the whole lower school coming together to celebrate. But the lead up was actually where half the magic happened ✨
A few years ago we discussed as teachers that many of the classes were busy in their own little silos, and had very little to do with one another. I think this so easily happens in Waldorf schools, and can even result in quite unpleasant rivalry between classes and very little healthy intermingling. We tried a few things over the following years to address this, including mixed activity periods and games between classes. The most successful things hands down though? Buddy classes. Each class in the lower school has another class that is their buddy class (we aim to buddy an older class with a younger one – keeping the age difference at least two years). Once a week the two classes come together to do a purposeful activity, and then have some playtime.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the older class to ‘serve’ younger students by lending their skills, helping solve problems, and supporting their learning. And, a wonderful thing for the younger classes to have role modelled help, someone to look up to, and older children they know and trust to play with. My class (Class Five) are buddied with Class One this year. Both classes LOVE their buddy time each week, and my students are tasked with planning purposeful games or activities to do with their buddies. This week, they decided to help Class One make their doves. We provided the paper and pattern, but let the children totally take the lead. The students in both classes had a wonderful time learning from one another, persisting through the tricky bits, and ended up on both sides SO proud of what they had achieved with their combined efforts.
The positive effects of buddies is becoming really visible in life outside the scheduled buddy time too. It’s now a regular occurrence to see groups of mixed age students playing beautifully together at morning tea and lunch, or older ones helping younger ones learn new playground skills like skipping, in their own time. I watched with delight when on playground duty earlier this week as a very sporty, competitive child from my class took his football down to the field and taught, in the most patient way you can imagine, the youngest, smallest Class One child how to gently dribble the ball. This was the outcome of those buddy periods, and it was just perfect.
With more and more children coming to us in Waldorf schools as only-children, the importance of doing things like this across ages is more important than ever. It’s something I think homeschoolers naturally have the ‘one-up’ over us in the classroom, as it just comes so much more naturally. Children love learning off one another, and often take in so much more this way (at both an academic and social level). The more we can provide opportunities for these experiences, the better! Do you have some inspiring mixed-age activities that work in your setting? I’d love to hear – comment below and let me know!
Wishing you a wonderful week ahead, and if these glorious Autumn days we have here in New Zealand are happening in your part of the world too, I hope you’re also getting the chance to take your children outside and enjoy them 🍁